FGCP

High availability (HA) is usually required in a system where there is high demand for little downtime. There are usually hot-swaps, backup routes, or standby backup units and as soon as the active entity fails, backup entities start functioning. This results in minimal interruption for users.

The FortiGate Clustering Protocol (FGCP) is a proprietary HA solution whereby FortiGates can find other member FortiGates to negotiate and create a cluster with. A FortiGate HA cluster consists of at least two FortiGates (members) configured for HA operation. All FortiGates in the cluster must be the same model and have the same firmware installed. Cluster members must also have the same hardware configuration, such as the same number of hard disks. All cluster members share the same configurations except for their hostname and priority level in the HA settings.